Chapter 346: Three Heirs

The phone rang while Lu Jibai's pen hung over a new kraft paper envelope.

March 3rd, 3 p.m.

"Zhengping Law Firm. This is Lu."

He set the pen down. The nib left a small dot of ink on the envelope.

"Mhm. Reported on the 25th. Filed this afternoon."

She turned her chair around. Outside, a scrap collector's loudspeaker passed by; a tricycle rolled through a puddle in the alley, the splash muffled.

"What's the charge?" she asked, keeping her voice low.

He listened for a while, then recited into the receiver: "Suspected of aiding in the destruction and fabrication of evidence."

The other end talked for a long time. He answered with a few quiet "yes"es. At the end he said: "The original recording is on that card. The card is sealed at the notary office. One copy with the court, one with the police. We never made copies. The clip on the phone was recorded off a screen from across a room."

"And the plate number?" she asked.

"Couldn't make it out," he said. "Only saw the taillights, heading out of town. No idea how many were in the car."

He hung up, placed the phone at the corner of the desk, picked up the pen, and wrote on the envelope.

Date. Time. Who called. What was said. Last line: Notice of Case Filing sent out.

He wrote each character separately, never joining strokes. At the words "aiding in destruction," the pen paused.

She stood in front of his desk and read those words aloud.

"Helping who destroy," she said. "This line doesn't say."

"A case filing only lists the charge. It doesn't name anyone at that stage."

"So when they filed it, they already had a name in mind."

"Whether there's a name," he said, capping the pen, "it isn't on this paper."

She reached over and turned the envelope to look at it. The paper was thick; the ink didn't show through to the back. The opening was still empty, not a single sheet inside.

"Which file does this page go in?"

He didn't answer. He stood and slid the envelope upright into the gap between the steel cabinet and the wall, perfectly straight, half a hand's width away from the stack of case files beside it.

"Separate file," he said. "This file has only one page so far."

"What's it called?"

"We'll see when there's a second page."

"This criminal matter," she said, eyeing the gap, "don't put it in the Qingshi Village file. That's a civil case. The other side is Hengyue. This has nothing to do with them."

"I wasn't going to," he said. "Not putting it there is because it's a separate matter, not because it's an inconvenience for us."

[Thud. The sample-switching matter got its own file today.]

The next morning, the second page of that envelope arrived.

A little after ten, someone downstairs called about a seal. He Xiufen came up carrying a stiff registered envelope and set it on Lu Jibai's desk. The corner still bore dried raindrop marks.

"Yours. I only let him go after stamping it."

Lu Jibai cut along the edge with scissors and pulled out a single sheet.

The top bore the agency name; the middle was a grid of boxes: reporting person, report time, filing time, suspected charge. At the bottom, the sealer's date: March 3rd. In the reporting person box was his name.

He finished reading, folded the page back the way it was, and slipped it into the envelope between the steel cabinet and the wall.

"Yesterday you said to wait for the second page," she said.

"It's here."

He Xiufen didn't leave. She leaned against the doorframe, picking a scrap of torn paper off her hand.

"Coming down for noodles today?" she asked.

"Going out this afternoon," Shen Zhixia said. "To Chengbei. Someone elderly needs to press a fingerprint on a piece of paper."

"How old?"

"Past seventy."

He Xiufen nodded and turned to go downstairs. Two steps down she looked back: "Whatever's weighing on that old lady's heart, don't push her. The paper is yours. The press of the finger is hers."

At 2:30 that afternoon, they headed out.

The wind at the Chengbei alley mouth was stronger than in Old Town, rushing straight in from the main road and slapping the plastic curtain at the courier hub's entrance. Parcels inside were stacked waist-high: two piles across, one pile lengthwise; on top sat two foam boxes wrapped in crisscross tape. A scanner beeped, someone called out last digits, and a voice from the back answered, "Aisle two."

The folding table stood between two stacks of boxes. One leg was propped with a piece of cardboard folded three times, and it still wobbled. On the table: a roll of tape, a box cutter, and against the wall a cup of water that no longer steamed.

Cen Hong came out wearing a blue cloth apron, the scanner tucked into its pocket. She wiped her hands on the apron twice, saw they weren't clean, and wiped again.

"My mom took the bus here. Got in at a quarter to three." Her voice was low. "She's in the back. Bad heart. She was holding her chest on the ride."

"Today she just has to sit," Shen Zhixia said.

The back curtain lifted, and Auntie Wang came out.

Hair all white, combed neat, a black hairpin behind one ear. The pocket of her blue padded jacket bulged with a hard rectangular edge. One hand pressed over it, as if afraid the thing might slip out. She held the doorframe for two seconds, looking over each person in the room before stepping forward.

"Lawyer Shen. It's you again."

"It's me."

"That paper last time, you were the one who read it to me line by line."

"This time Cen Hong reads it." Shen Zhixia moved the plastic stool to the sheltered side. "Sit here. The draft comes from over there."

Auntie Wang sat, set a cloth bag on her lap, and rested both hands on its opening.

Lu Jibai drew three pages from the folder and spread them one by one on the folding table, anchoring the ends with the tape roll and the box cutter. A gust came in; the top page's edge lifted. He pressed it down and didn't let go until the wind passed.

"Mom." Cen Hong bent down, turned the first page toward her mother, and pointed at the first line. "Principal—that's the three of us. Your name is in the first line."

"I can't read."

"I'll read it to you. You nod when you understand. If any sentence doesn't make sense, tell me to stop."

She read slowly, pausing at each sentence and glancing at her mother's face.

At the words "re-testing, recovery, decryption," Auntie Wang raised a hand.

"What does decryption mean?"

"It means taking out the things locked inside," Shen Zhixia said. "Take one out, record one. While it's being recorded, someone stands beside him, watching."

"Locked." Auntie Wang repeated the word, nodded. "All right."

At the purpose line, Cen Hong stopped.

"Let me read this sentence again. To look into the Baixi Village matter. Later it may go into a retrial, or it may go into a complaint."

"What's a retrial?"

"It means going over the old matter again," Shen Zhixia said. "Who wrote it, who signed it, who delivered it—asked line by line. If any line doesn't hold up, someone has to explain why it doesn't."

"They went over it once, back then," Auntie Wang said.

"This sentence is worded the way Director He set it," Shen Zhixia said. "She told us to write the purpose plainly, not to make it sound nice. Not one word has changed to this day."

Auntie Wang stared at that line for a while. Couldn't read it. Nodded.

The second page had a custody clause: once the hard drive returned from the appraisal institution, Shen Zhixia would remain custodian, sealed as before, and without the written consent of all three heirs, no one could touch it.

"Where is that drive now?" Auntie Wang asked.

"With me. Bottom drawer of my cabinet." Shen Zhixia said. "Two seal strips on it, signed by the notary and me. I went to check the day before yesterday. No new creases on the paper. I took photos."

"His things," Auntie Wang said, lifting her hand slightly off the cloth bag. "I haven't dared touch a single one."

"You don't need to," Shen Zhixia said. "Before anyone touches it, the three of you have to put your names on paper first."

Cen Hong fished a small tin of ink paste from under the table and opened it. The paint on the lid was chipped.

"Mom. This box. Under the name."

Auntie Wang extended her right hand, rubbed her finger twice on the hem of her jacket, and pressed down. The print came out light, a piece missing from the edge.

"Too light," Cen Hong said. "Press another one, right beside it. Don't rub."

The second press was heavier. The pad of her finger bore into the paper; when she lifted it, her whole hand came up with it. Two prints sat side by side on the paper—one faint, one dark.

Cen Hong signed the "written on behalf of" box on all three pages. Her writing was quick, one continuous stroke. When she finished, she capped the pen and held it out for her mother to see.

"Your name here. My name here."

"I recognize it," Auntie Wang said. "I know your handwriting well enough."

The third page still had an empty signature line. Cen Hong flipped the paper over to show her mother the blank back.

"This page is for my brother. I mailed it to Shenzhen yesterday. He'll sign it after work."

"He writes better than me."

"He'll sign," Cen Hong said.

"How much will this cost?" Auntie Wang suddenly asked.

"We'll front the appraisal fee," Shen Zhixia said. "The invoice will be under all three of your names. Last time, the invoice was under your family's name."

"And if the money's spent and there's still nothing?"

"Then we write 'nothing,'" Shen Zhixia said. "How many times we tried, which method each time—all written down. A clearly written 'nothing' is still a page. If someday someone comes at us with that page, we won't need to explain."

Auntie Wang drew her hand back from the paper and pressed it over the hard edge in her pocket. The scanner beeped again inside; someone at the door called a number, called twice before anyone answered.

"Lawyer Shen."

"Yes."

"That thing he left behind," Auntie Wang looked at her. "Can it still speak?"

"Whether it can speak, we'll know after tomorrow," Shen Zhixia said.

She glanced at the three pages, then back at Auntie Wang's face.

"Every word it says will have someone's signature on it. Who tried it, who recorded it, who stood by watching—line by line on paper. If anyone comes asking about that paper someday, I can answer for every mark."

Auntie Wang nodded, then nodded again, as if to reassure herself.

Lu Jibai gathered the three pages in order, with the two fingerprints facing up, and tucked them back into the folder.

"Who meets the drive when it comes back?" he asked Cen Hong.

"I will."

"Bring her with you," he said. "When it comes back, she still keeps it. Your three names are on the paper, the drive is in her hands. Both ends are covered."

Another gust blew in, flipping the plastic film on top of the boxes. Shen Zhixia pressed the folder down on the table; the paper edge trembled under her hand. When Auntie Wang stood, she braced herself on the folding table; the leg propped with cardboard wobbled. Cen Hong pulled a medicine box from her pocket and pressed it into her mother's palm. Auntie Wang squeezed it once, then tucked it back into the pocket.

[Thud. A person waiting to be questioned pressed a fingerprint on paper today.]

At noon on March 6th, the phone buzzed twice at the corner of the desk.

Two photos from Cen Hong. The first showed the full page, laid flat on the folding table, one corner still weighted by the box cutter. The second showed only the signature block, shot close enough to make out a faint smudge on the paper.

She opened the second one and zoomed in.

Below the signature there was an empty line. The man had added a line himself, in handwriting, pressed hard, the final stroke dragging long:

Dad's matter—please.

She looked at it, set the phone down, then picked it up a moment later to look again.

Lu Jibai was revising a document. His pen stopped.

"Cen Hong's brother signed," she said.

He took the phone. He studied the photo longer than she had, his finger dragging the line to the center of the screen, then back.

"This line wasn't in the draft we sent," she said.

"Mhm."

"Does it matter?"

"It doesn't matter." He handed the phone back. "The extra line is something he chose to write on his own. He signed it. That line is his words, not ours."

She sent the photo to the printer, waited for the page to come out, trimmed the white margins, and slipped it behind the three authorization pages.

In the envelope between the steel cabinet and the wall, there was still only the page of the Notice of Case Filing. The single line on the envelope's face still read the time of the March 3rd phone call.

She pushed the cabinet door shut, then pulled it open again, took that page out, and laid it on the desk.

The writing faced up.